Four social landlords fail regulator’s expanded consumer standards

The council also reported 1,900 open damp and mould cases, 16,000 overdue repairs and 3,000 overdue fire safety actions. In addition, the council did not have up-to-date information about the condition of its tenants’ homes.

Bristol Council referred itself to the RSH in April for potential non-compliance with the Safety and Quality Standard, as well as other duties.

Tony Dyer, leader of Bristol Council, said: “We apologise to all council tenants and those who live in our council owned homes.”

He added: “We accept the findings of the regulator’s review and have committed to fix the issues we face in the shortest possible time.

“Our position is not unique, and we join a number of other local authorities who have found their arrangements to be inadequate to meet the necessary national standards for social housing.

“This offers us the opportunity to learn from others and take on board the approaches they have developed to deliver decent, safe homes to a high level of regulatory compliance.”

Out of Guildford Council’s 5,200 homes, 1,700 did not have an up-to-date electrical condition report, and it could not provide evidence that it had completed 1,300 fire safety actions.

Also, the council did not collect tenant satisfaction measures from residents, which all social landlords are required to do.

Julia McShane, leader of Guildford Council and lead councillor for housing, said: “We acknowledge and fully accept the regulator’s findings.”

Since December 2023, “we’ve taken urgent action to improve our service”, she said. Progress made by the council includes a “real-time compliance dashboard”, recruitment of officers and procurement of building safety contracts.  

Ms McShane explained: “We’ve reviewed all electrical information data to confirm an accurate position of where we are and procured two short term contractors to complete the certification work by July 2025.  

“A fire risk validation exercise has confirmed there are no outstanding high-risk actions. A new contractor is now revisiting the low to medium-risk properties to validate them, arrange any works required and update our position.”

Octavia Housing currently has 1,200 overdue fire safety remedial actions across its 5,000 homes. It was unable to provide evidence that it is meeting other health and safety requirements and it does not hold complete and accurate records for safety inspections.

Kevin Bolt, interim chief executive at Octavia, said: “The safety and well-being of our residents are our highest priority. Octavia recognises that it should have done more to meet the requirements of the Safety and Quality Standard and accepts the C3 grading received from the regulator today.

“With the support of our proposed merger partner, Abri, Octavia has in recent months allocated substantial extra resources to improving our performance on health and safety, and are confident of delivering the changes that the regulator requires.”

Sheffield Council had 10,000 outstanding repairs across its 38,500 homes, and between January and April 2024, more than 90% of disrepair cases were outstanding for extended periods. The RSH also found evidence that the council does not have an accurate record of the condition of tenants’ homes.

The council referred itself to the regulator in 2022 over concerns it was not compliant with annual gas safety check regulations.

Douglas Johnson, chair of housing committee at Sheffield Council, said: “We acknowledge that standards in our Housing Service in relation to gas safety and the number of outstanding repairs to be carried out on our properties have not been sufficient.”

He continued: “We have implemented new policies and introduced new ways of working that have seen a rise in those standards of service for our tenants.”

Finally, the regulator reported that Cambridge Council had previously overcharged 3,600 tenants, around half of its total tenants, because of rent-setting errors over a prolonged period. The overcharge is estimated to be around £3.2m.

Gerri Bird, executive councillor for housing at Cambridge Council, said: “When we created the affordable rents policy, we could have set rents higher than we did without breaching government guidance, but because of misinterpreting the guidance, we have unfortunately overcharged some tenants. We are really sorry and we’re working to put this right as soon as we can. We really appreciate tenants’ patience with us while we work through this.”

The regulator said that all of the landlords were working with it to address their issues and put things right.

Kate Dodsworth, chief of regulatory engagement at the RSH, said: “The judgements we published today show that each of these landlords have issues which they need to address promptly.

“All landlords need to make sure they deliver the outcomes in our standards and inform us when there are material issues. Our new approach to regulation, which started in April, gives us new tools to scrutinise landlords’ performance and, where there are issues, drive them to deliver long-term improvements for the benefit of tenants.”